63 Short Wrong-Full Crown Vic Swap

[CanyonRider]

So it appears the CV firewall sits a bit further back than the truck's original firewall location. Is that true? How far back is it?

Thanks for all the detail!
CR

[HawaiiKid]

It sits about 2-4 inches back from where the stock firewall would have sat-not a bolt on kinda deal. Keep in mind that we bumped the cab back a bit also to keep the rear wheels centered in the wells (hopefully, according to our measurements) and to put the front wheels further forward in the fender wells. Should look better, and since we were not worried about the firewall fitting anyways we went ahead and did it.

Got everything laid out tonight, ran out of welding gas though...fabrication is a slow process I'm learning haha.

[HawaiiKid]

Got some huge progress done today and this past Thursday night! This is where we left off after a long ass Wednesday night and a longer Thursday night...

We bent some angle iron so it matched the curve of the F100's under cowl/where it's old firewall was. We then took a old door skin we had laying around and started building pieces to fit the gap from the Crown Vic firewall to the angle iron on the cab. We got all the pieces cut and set to weld by the end of Thursday, and also had finished welding the back of the cab's floor

We incorporated the back of the floor pan into the back of the cab-it looks so good because Dennis and I massaged the metal for hours and he welded the hell out of it haha.
The final touches today on the back

Proof its a cop car-alum drive shaft

Final grinding

Ground, prepped, ready to etch prime and seam seal

Seam sealed in the back, then flipped it over and did the front



Hitting it with the bedliner!

All bedlined!

Letting it get tacky...we used Herculiner liner and their spray gun.


And....drumroll please...

The last time she will be going on the frame! Final welding on tomorrow night, and thats all she wrote as far as the cab comin off again!

Dropped the seat in just to see how the seating postion was-felt good, a lot lower than stock F100, which is great


Needs final welding, then seam seal and rhino line from the inside out. After that it will be steering column, getting it to run again, gas tank mounting somehow, then moving the core support back a couple inches, body panel fitment, cutting out the old rockers and cab corners and welding in the new ones, making rocker steps, then bed fitment/chopping and then paint! I'm sure there are a bunch of things I've missed but thats the general plan

[Rusty 63]

Why not reuse the CV body mounts? Curious why you'd want to weld the body to the frame...? Great work, though.

[CanyonRider]

Why not reuse the CV body mounts? Great work, though.

Pretty sure the portion of the CV floorpan he used didn't have any body mounting points left after it was trimmed to fit the cab.

Great work! Really appreciate the pics!

CR

[The Big M]

I'm also curious about the decision to weld the cab to the frame. It looks like some of the mounts could be retained so I think I'd be inclined to isolate the cab from the frame with a rubber mount if at all possible. I'd expect our cabs to be much less rigid than the Crown Vic body structure, yet the Vic still used rubber mounts (even full unibody cars use rubber isolators where the subframes mount up to the structure). Rigidly attaching the cab to the frame might make it pick up road vibration and cause a lot of rattling and squeaking as the frame flexes (particularly from the roof skin and doors). I'd think it could affect your panel gaps as well.

Just my 2 cents, as it looks like you've done a great job so far!

[HawaiiKid]

Why not reuse the CV body mounts? Curious why you'd want to weld the body to the frame...? Great work, though.

We will be using the body mounts, along with welding it to the frame. The main reason we'll be welding it to the frame is because we are not lettin this sucker go anywhere! This truck will not see a lot of horsepower for a while, but eventually it will get a power adder of some sort and see some fairly serious torque. It WILL be overkill to weld it to the frame, and honestly will transmit more NVH than if we hadn't, but I am confident that it will result in a stiffer chassis and a more solid starting point.

Why not reuse the CV body mounts? Great work, though.

Pretty sure the portion of the CV floorpan he used didn't have any body mounting points left after it was trimmed to fit the cab.

Great work! Really appreciate the pics!

CR

It actually keeps the stock front four, and two in the rear I'm happy to provide them, there is nothing I'd love ore than to see someone use this build as a basis to start their own!

I'm also curious about the decision to weld the cab to the frame. It looks like some of the mounts could be retained so I think I'd be inclined to isolate the cab from the frame with a rubber mount if at all possible. I'd expect our cabs to be much less rigid than the Crown Vic body structure, yet the Vic still used rubber mounts (even full unibody cars use rubber isolators where the subframes mount up to the structure). Rigidly attaching the cab to the frame might make it pick up road vibration and cause a lot of rattling and squeaking as the frame flexes (particularly from the roof skin and doors). I'd think it could affect your panel gaps as well.

Just my 2 cents, as it looks like you've done a great job so far!

You can see my answer above, but all of your points are valid ones as far as NVH and squeaking goes. We think the bedlining should help with some of the vibrations, and a bit of the noise, and at the end of the day we should end up with a better overall quality compared to what the stock F100 was. I'll also be adding some carpet, and most likely some dynamat like materials, so we'll see how that all effects it.

[HawaiiKid]

Got some HUGE progress tonight even if the pics don't show much...

Got the floor ground down, sanded, then primed and seamsealed

Was able to get up under the dash and seam seal the entire firewall from the inside (we had done the outside before bed lining it)


And then we welded her to the frame! *Its set now, no comin off, on to the next step! *

And here's one shot of it in the final spot with a fender half ass hung!

[MadMaxetc]

Looks good. That's a nice drop.

[HawaiiKid]

Looks good. That's a nice drop.

Thank you! Should be somewhere between a 5 and 7 inch drop...I'll measure from the fenders and rockers once it's all together. Nice thing is this is 100% a body drop so far-nothing has been done to drop the stock CVPI frame any lower than stock yet!


No real pictures to post but got the interior shot with bedliner, started messing with the steering column a bit-had to cut down a piece because the dash on the F100 is a lot shallower than the Vic. Gonna get after it Wednesday night again, try and get the column in by next week so it'll steer then start wiring!

[66Bullitt]

Anymore updates on your build, really interested in seeing the finished product.

[HawaiiKid]

Anymore updates on your build, really interested in seeing the finished product.

Yup!

Finally got the steering column in...it was a huge pain in the ass.

Used part of the stock dash, the stock column with some modifications to the shifter set up, braced it off the modified brake pedal assembly, then off the stock F100 brace.

Shot from the front...hung a fender...

Got the doors hung!

Admiring our handiwork!

Then got the AC box on the firewall...

Started wiring...this is the smallest harness in the car!

You can see where we tried to make the heater box fit...didn't really work. Rather than screw with it we just decided to just run the AC box.

The wiring nightmare haha...

Got it turned into this!


Eliminated probably 90 percent of the harness haha



And then this happened!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JDXvEcVM1E

Shes running and driving!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY03AmhASMg

[kstones63]

I remember dieting the harness for my engine. It did like yours and eliminated about 90% of the wires that I didn't need. That is not a job for the weak at heart.

Kevin

[rickairmedic]

Looking good the video's were great . Now that you have her pretty much set do me a favor can ya get me a measurement from the rear of the door to the front of the back tire .


Rick

[HawaiiKid]

I remember dieting the harness for my engine. It did like yours and eliminated about 90% of the wires that I didn't need. That is not a job for the weak at heart.

Kevin

It was not fun! I say "was", but I still have hours and hours to spend going through it-this was to just get it running and eliminate most of the interior harness.

Looking good the video's were great . Now that you have her pretty much set do me a favor can ya get me a measurement from the rear of the door to the front of the back tire .


Rick

It really depends on one thing-are you a Louisville Cardinal fan?? If you are I can't do ANYTHING for you-Syracuse alum and diehard fan here! Hahahaha I'll have to check the next time I am out there


BIG update today!

Its been a month since I was last out there but finally some progress!!

Got the core support moved back, brackets welded up to get the fenders to fit to the grille shell and the battery box mounted to the core support.



Also no pics but cut the front of the frame rails off to make the grille shell fit, scooted the core support back a couple inches and solid mounted it to the frame. This causes the smaux oil cooler that comes standard on cop cars to hit the front sway bar, so rather than screw with it we dropped the swaybar to get the core support to fit today and plan on deleting the aux cooler to make it fit.

Got the grille shell on for the first time since the truck got torn down! Also the fenders are actually mounted properly!




The hood is just sittin on it for now, really need a new one...

[rickairmedic]

Looking awesome . Well as far as the Cards or the Cats I really dont give a hoot as I grew up in Tampa Florida home of the Buccaneers and needless to say prefer sports that require 2 balls .

Honestly I have old metal kitchen cabinets in my shop that I painted Ford blue and on a regular basis I get asked if I'm a Cats fan and I have to point out all of the FORD signs in the garage .


Rick

[61flareside]

That is a very cool set up man. I bet that thing will be awesome when it's done, can drive it everyday and be comfy.

[eddieschopshop]

wow.. ive done a couple of crown vic swaps.. full frames and front clips..but i never thought about using the firewall and floor.. thats awesome.. your def gonnna have a nice ride when its done.. great stance too

[HawaiiKid]

Looking awesome . Well as far as the Cards or the Cats I really dont give a hoot as I grew up in Tampa Florida home of the Buccaneers and needless to say prefer sports that require 2 balls .

Honestly I have old metal kitchen cabinets in my shop that I painted Ford blue and on a regular basis I get asked if I'm a Cats fan and I have to point out all of the FORD signs in the garage .


Rick

Well at long as you aren't a Cardinal fan I can deal with that haha. I'll get that measurment the next time I'm out there, prob be a while since the next few weekends are "spoken for" but I'll get it!

That is a very cool set up man. I bet that thing will be awesome when it's done, can drive it everyday and be comfy.

Thank you! That is the point of this build really-to end up with a very drivable Slick that you can get parts for much anywhere. I'm thinking this could be the ultimate Power Tour truck-A/C, smooth ride, looks and sounds good, and if something breaks just find the nearest cab or copcar!

wow.. ive done a couple of crown vic swaps.. full frames and front clips..but i never thought about using the firewall and floor.. thats awesome.. your def gonnna have a nice ride when its done.. great stance too

Thank you! Means a lot coming from someone who has done similar builds man.

[HawaiiKid]

Its been a while since the last update here...mostly because there hasn't been a lot to update! Been working on customer cars and this Texas heat is a huge demotivator haha. With that said I finally got a few major things done...



This was my end of July update...

Got a few grounds actually done (not vicegripped in place anymore). Got one of the fenders sucked in so the door can be opened from the inside too, which is nice-still need to fix it properly but we have bigger issues to address first. Cleaned up a lil of the wiring, decided that the AC and radio will be mounted behind the glovebox door, prob smooth the dash some. My gf came out and drove her for the first time, it was awesome to see her face light up driving it!




And this is my Labor Day weekend update...
Got a few things done this weekend between a bunch of other shit.  Amazing how working on projects like this can make you feel better about all the crap happening in your life.

Anyways-got out there and got the frame built for the gas tank...


Got the tank pulled


Then we got the frame mounted in the back of the Vic frame-moved it up from the stock location so it would sit higher for once the truck is bagged.


Really strong frame, no flexing and a very solid mount! As you can see we built the frame out of one inch tubing, then mounted the tank in it, drilled holes through the surrounding flange and bolted the tank in. This makes for easy fuel system modifications down the road too!


No pictures but I also got the coolant crossover/heater core delete done and started tucking the wiring for the back half of the truck. Next step is getting the fenders actually solidly mounted, the hood on and a latch figured out, then probably start figuring out wiring. Or may just cut the shit outta the bed and MAKE that bitch fit and make the trucks kinda look like a truck hahaha. We'll see, hard to get work done in between our customer's truck and my 8-7 job!

Bonus pic...